No, I don't think it stifles protest, in some cases it could be argued that the indelible nature of internet protest takes the wind out of the sails or serve as a surrogate for real world action, obviously in other cases it's the driver. The point I was going for is that in contrast to China, the New Zealand politician seems to feel significantly less threatened.

If I understand this matter correctly, there is no 'correct' figure as such, in the sense that there isn't an official statistic for the weekly viewers of TVNZ7. (Which itself seems weird to me.) The Minister and the Herald took the monthly cumulative figure and assumed that you could divide it by four to get an approximate weekly figure. The best that we can say is that the weekly figure is probably a lot closer to 800,000 than it is to 200,000.

Happy to be corrected on this - I find the whole 'monthly cum' reporting a bit strange.

Just to note that Linda Herrick called while I was out and is keen to make a correction. So that's good.

I believe I can be forgiven for calling back in the morning, rather than on a lovely Sunday afternoon when there is a vegetable curry to be cooked, and savvy Swedish edits of funk, soul and reggae classics to be played to the neighbours.

That outcome was a reflection of the broader political calculus, but without the online s92 action it would certainly have been worse. The campaign only worked because it tied in with offline lobbying action.

Without wanting to delve too deeply into this, that qualifier is quite possibly redundant to anyone whose entire income is reliant on them having a functional internet connection. As I said earlier Sacha;

The New Zealand population takes this into account and is very forgiving

why would anybody talk about taking their trousers off on campus, even to deny doing it in a joking fashion?!oddly that sounds very familiar...

– I find the whole ‘monthly cum’ reporting a bit strange.

Sounds like an average waking dream.:-~Any hoo. ont he subject of numbers I here Pres. Putin is readying his winning celebrations for the upcoming elections. We have been assured that the latest voting machinery will be in use. (see below)

Just to note that Linda Herrick called while I was out and is keen to make a correction. So that’s good.

Bloody oath it is, and I’ve updated the post to say so. Credit where due etc. – but could someone kick Ms. Herrick a rung or four up the greasy pole at the Herald because this needs to become a feature not a bug of the Herald’s editorial OS.

Coleman said he got the figure from officials and wasn’t concerned that it was misleading.

Officials are always convenient scapegoats for idiot ministers (considering they're professionally restrained from calling their political masters incompetent liars in public), but even if true you'd think he'd be very concerned.

Indeed. The TPPA in its current perverted form still poses a threat, especially given the lack of scrutiny - which media advertisers exactly have to gain from it? And here's hoping that Silicon Valley wins the SOPA/PIPA shitfight.

Probably not – but it’s hardly unknown for people to be less inclined to be less inclined to run the bullshit detector over people telling them what they want to hear. Personally, I’d be very unhappy about being fed bum information by staffers who are pretty well-paid for knowing their arses from their elbows. Then again, I'm never going to get a ministerial warrant so what do I know?

To re-jig what I said up-thread: Ministers are perfectly entitled to advance policy agendas, but they’re not entitled to do so by blithely shoveling bullshit.

Okay: just to say that Linda Herrick and Rebecca Barry Hill are very sorry that a supportive story turned out like this and Linda is seeing what she can do about a correction and making sure the bogus figure isn’t used again. It’s not a matter of any kind of vendetta.

Rebecca got the figure from ... the Herald website, which rather neatly shows how bad information stays alive when it remains in publication.

Good news. It's nice to know that if you want the Herald to make a correction, you only have to object, object again, complain, disprove, complain again, disprove again, protest vigorously, have others complain, and, finally, gasp in exasperation.